President Obama is on a trip to Israel, his first as President of the United States. Expectations for the trip have been very low, as Obama’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been — difficult, as has been his relation with the Israeli people.

It didn’t start off well, the presidential armored limousine known as “the beast” broke down and had to be hauled away. Only 10 percent of Israelis hold a favorable view of Obama and his foreign policy. Palestinians are even less enthusiastic, and staged demonstrations.

The map of the Middle East displayed in an administration video released just before the trip, showed the Jewish state without the Golan Heights, which were shown as part of Syria, without parts of northern Israel, Jerusalem ans surrounding territory was shown as part of the West Bank. The itinerary at the White House website also implied that Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, was neither the capital nor even part of Israel. So do you believe the nice words, or the unacceptable map?

Obama made a fine speech to the people of Israel, connecting Israel to Biblical history, and correctly described the goal of Zionism as the wish “to be a free people in your homeland,” which is a major improvement. On the other hand, students from Ariel University in the West Bank were excluded from attendance.

When he discussed Iran, he said that “time is not unlimited” for negotiations and flatly said “Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. “This is not a danger that can be contained,” he added.”America will do what we must” to stop Iran. This is as tough as the administration has been. We’ll see if he means it this time, or if it is once again, just words.

Obama came into office with the firm belief that one of his great accomplishments as president would be bringing peace to the Middle East by making peace between Israel and Palestine — the two state solution.

It was an incredibly naive view of the Middle East as his fumbles in Cairo, and his misunderstanding of the so-called “Arab Spring” have proved. Israel has always been open to peace, and ardently desires it, even being willing to trade land for peace in the past. They learned that land is not the problem, the problem is that Palestinians desperately want to destroy Israel, and have no interest whatsoever in peace. Palestinians continued rocket attacks while the president was there, and staged demonstrations against him.

Since Obama has been in office, the Middle East has become a far more dangerous and unstable place. Al Qaeda is on the rise, Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel, Syria is in a state of civil war, with the use of poison gas rumored, Iranian proxies are advancing regionally and they continue to work, unchecked, on acquiring nuclear weapons. “Israel remains the best and only truly stable ally the United States has in the Middle East.”as Heritage senior research fellow Jim Phillips wrote.

Powerline recalled this video that Andrew Klavan made a while back, which makes the point rather well.